


There Was, There Wasn't

by Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Friends With Limited-Time Benefits, Platonic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 22:01:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6725260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/pseuds/Minim%20Calibre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After New York, Fury had asked for her assessment of Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Was, There Wasn't

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who got stuck listening to me talk about this story over the last few years and somehow managed to put up with it. Especially those of you who suffered through the context-free texts and emails at random hours and those of you who stuck through my social media stream of consciousness commentary while I tried to get this finished before Civil War opens in the States.

After New York, Fury had asked for her assessment of Rogers.

"Smart, excellent tactical thinker, holds himself to a high standard of integrity."

"I'm sensing a but in there, Agent Romanoff."

"Captain Rogers is adrift, sir, and his history indicates a certain degree of recklessness and a corresponding lack of concern for his personal safety, both of which I feel will be exacerbated by his sense of isolation and lack of purpose."

"So your recommendation would be to give him a mission?

"I think it would be healthy, yes."

"Well, good thing he's already agreed to come aboard SHIELD."

"If Rogers has already agreed to come work for us, why did you ask me for my report on him?"

"Because you, Agent Romanoff, are going to be partnered with him. You worked well together in New York and he'll do better in the field if we start him out with a known quantity."

"We worked together once. Hardly a known quantity."

"You worked together once under exceptional circumstances. I'd say that's good enough."

Fury doesn't ask her to continue her observation of Captain Rogers, but then again, he knows her well enough to know he doesn't have to.

There are other words she could have used. Unquantifiable, unprofessional words, and more to the point, irrelevant in the context of her initial assessment. Kind is one. Lonely another. Hopeless makes it into more than a few post-mission texts with Sharon and more than a few conversations with Clint.

Needs to get out more is how she'd sum it up a few months into their partnership. And if she tries to give him a push in that direction, well, it's nice to have a hobby. Besides, the long-suffering looks he gives her every time he deflects one of her dating suggestions every bit as neatly as he deflects a grenade make it worth every hour she spends carefully vetting the unsuspecting candidates.

***

If she's ever been a morning person, it was lifetimes ago and wiped out of her along with so much else. That definition certainly doesn't apply to her now, especially not when she'd crawled into bed at nearly three in the morning after a night spent working on her vast backlog of paperwork. The glowing numbers on her alarm clock read 5:40. On the screen of her SHIELD-issue phone, Nick Fury's name tells her that going back to bed isn't going to be an option.

With a groan, she picks up the call and answers with an irritated, "What?"

She shoos the stray cat that might as well be sharing her apartment off of her laundry basket and starts getting dressed as she listens to him explain the bare bones of the situation: a hijacked SHIELD vessel, she and Rogers will be working with the STRIKE team.

"Natasha." The use of her name and something in Fury's voice give her pause. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee to make up for the early wake-up call."

So. There's something else, something he doesn't want to tell her about over the phone. She knows her part; they've done this often enough. For the benefit of anyone who's listening, she says, layering a degree of resigned irritation with affection, "Fine, but not from the canteen. I do have some standards, Nick."

"Fine, not from the canteen."

Less than a quarter of an hour later, she's got her hands curled around sixteen ounces of overpriced, overly-sweet espresso and her head full of cryptic instructions on data retrieval.

"We need to prevent, ideally, or mitigate, less ideally, any possible security breach," he says. "The fewer heads know about this, the better. Officially, you're tasked with assist on the hostage rescue. Unofficially, Agent Romanoff, this is your top priority."

"And what about the hostages?"

"If it comes to that, Rogers can handle the hostages. That's his only priority."

***

"What about online dating?" Natasha smirks slightly, pulling into a casual stretch as she waits for Steve's reaction.

He doesn't look up from the file he's reading. Still, she thinks she sees a hint of a matching smile. "Did you finally run out of SHIELD employees to try to set me up with?"

"There's Marie in IT. I can send you her Plenty of Fish profile."

"Blonde, set up my laptop for me?"

"She volunteers at the Humane Society and likes old movies."

"We'll be at the coordinates in fifteen. Talk to me about it after we've finished going over the ship's schematics."

"Gwyn in Records collects Benny Goodman LPs. She's on OK Cupid and Match.com."

"I'm more of a Gershwin fan. Or Radiohead. Schematics, Nat."

"Or you could just try Tinder, but I don't think that's really your speed."

"I deleted the app, and thanks for that, by the way."

"Just trying to help you adjust to the twenty-first century."

***

It's not that the mission goes sideways, precisely.

There's security on the ship's computers that goes beyond the standard for SHIELD. She expected that. It's also, however, beyond all the security measures she's been made aware of, which she hadn't expected. It only takes a handful of minutes to crack it and start copying the data to a thumb drive. Unfortunately, as the increasingly urgent repetition of her name coming through the comm informs her, that handful of minutes means she's not going to make the rendezvous with Rumlow and the STRIKE team.

Then, just as the copy's nearly finished, Batroc and Rogers barrel through the door. Rogers has his helmet off, color high in his cheeks; he almost looks like he's enjoying the opportunity to channel some anger at a deserving target. At least until he notices her.

She can see the precise moment where the anger shifts, turns from something about the mission into something personal and aimed in her direction. Whatever it is Nick's asking of her, whatever information he thinks is on this ship, whatever the hell it is he's not telling her, she knows Nick, so she knows it has to be worth the damage this is going to do to her carefully-established working relationship with Steve.

Which doesn't mean she has to like it.

For a brief moment after they get out of the path of Batroc's grenade, she thinks she can salvage things with a flip acknowledgment of fault. That hope is gone before the words even finish leaving her mouth. She watches him stalk off while she's still inhaling smoke and dust.

Rogers hates being lied to, so maybe she's just been lucky, going this long without hitting up against his righteous streak.

***

The cat has long since reclaimed the laundry basket when Natasha finally makes it back to her apartment. It ignores her, choosing instead to groom itself, pink tongue delicately licking the inside of one skinny hind leg as it sheds all over her clothing. Once it decides it's clean enough, it stretches upward, the knobs of its spine lifting the dusty black fur into blurred scales. Only then does it deem her worthy of its attention, hopping down to weave itself around her ankles.

"You don't actually live here," she reminds it, bending down to scratch it between the ears. "The litterbox is strictly a precautionary measure. Strictly."

After a quick scan of the perimeter, she opens the bedroom window. The cat gives her one last friendly butt of its head, then leaps out to the fire escape. She watches it vanish down the rickety metal stairs and into the darkness of the alley before she shuts the window, latching it tight and re-arming her alarms.

She tosses the clothing the cat chose to shed on into the hamper and sets about putting the remaining items away. Much as she wants to collapse on her bed and sleep for the next year, she's fairly certain she can't afford to make her broken sleep schedule that much worse.

Besides, she'd tried napping on the quinjet, counting angry twitches of Steve's jaw like sheep, and failed. Too noisy, too crowded, and too hard to sleep when you're dealing incredibly poorly with the frustration of being on the receiving end of Captain America's disappointment face.

For a minute, she contemplates texting someone, channeling that frustration into grim humor and sad emojis, but Nick expects better of her, Clint's in god knows where out of range, and Sharon's never seen it in action, so too much of the joke would be lost on her.

"I was doing my job, Rogers," she mutters, balling her socks together and shoving them into the top dresser drawer. The sound of it slamming shut when she's done isn't as satisfying as she'd hoped. The runners are too new, the entire dresser too well-made for the bang to be much more than a whimper.

Even though she knows she's done nothing wrong, Steve's reaction still stings. And much as she knows it's an overreaction rooted in her pre-SHIELD activities, it doesn't stop the irritating flare up of self-doubt and self-reproach. Unfortunately, she also knows that there's nothing she can do to but to let it play out.

The most recent anniversary of the day she came in from the cold, Clint left a necklace in the shape of an arrow in her locker, tucked into a lurid purple card, obviously homemade, with a grinning caricature of a dog on the front and _It's Nice Being the Doggone Good Guys! s_ crawled inside in his appalling chicken scratch. Then, it had made her smile with an affectionate roll of her eyes. Now, she finds herself reaching for it like a talisman, as if the cool touch of the metal around her neck could ward off the worst of her personal demons.

It can't, of course. Only fools and children would believe a thing like that.

Doesn't stop her from wishing it were true.

***

Tired as she is, sleep remains elusive, even after she finally hits an acceptable time to go to bed. At some point, she gives up entirely and retreats to the living room instead. Netflix has already asked her at least once if she's still watching whatever awful sitcom she put on to distract herself when every phone in her apartment starts ringing at once: SHIELD-issue, personal, and emergency.

Only three people have all those numbers and they should never all ring at the same time.

The personal line is the closest of the three. "Romanoff."

It's Hill. Three words that send Natasha's world tilting sideways. "Nick's been shot."

***

Rogers describes the shooter. The world tilts again.

Her hands want to go to the scar on her stomach as Hill confirms her suspicions regarding the ballistics. Nick dies and all she can do is watch, helpless behind glass. She's having trouble controlling her breathing.

There will be paperwork. There is always paperwork. That will be Hill's job. Hill's and Rogers'. Rogers, whose apartment Nick was in when he was shot, whose apartment Nick shouldn't have been in at all. She watches Rogers' reflection in the glass, watches as he reflexively touches something in his pocket, something small enough that it leaves no visible bulge.

Hill ushers them both to a room where they can pay their last respects, where she will stay until she's forced to leave. Twice, she sees Rogers repeat the touch to the contents of his pocket when he believes himself unobserved. _What were you doing there, Nick?_ Natasha stares at the body as if it could tell her what she's certain she needs to know. What she's going to do without Nick to guide her.

***

Manipulating emotions is a skill she can never unlearn, so she uses it to her advantage, even when the emotions in question are her own. She is angry and therefore it makes strategic sense to let her anger be known when she demands answers from Rogers about why Nick was with him. Then she gauges his reaction to her question, to Rumlow's unwelcome interruption. He's nervous. No, not nervous. On edge. Whatever Fury was there for, it has Rogers on high alert.

She makes a show of walking off, ducking out of sight and using a compact to watch as Rogers pulls whatever is in his pocket out and then purposefully bumps into the man restocking the vending machine, knocking something from his hand and offering to help put it back. It works. Who wouldn't let Captain America help them, after all?

What she's looking for is hidden behind three packs of Hubba Bubba. She feeds quarters into the slot and selects 510, repeating and repeating until the thumb drive he had hidden there falls. When it does, she slides it into her pocket, pops a stale piece of bubble gum into her mouth, and settles back to wait for Rogers to return.

She estimates it will be a few hours. Good thing there's plenty of gum.

When her SHIELD phone starts buzzing, a high drone reserved for agency-wide emergencies, Natasha slips into the nearest restroom. When she sees what's flashing across her screen, she bites back several choice curses in several languages. SHIELD Level One, all agents tasked with tracking down and bringing in Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America.

Nick trusted him with the thumb drive for a reason. Whatever that reason was, there's no way this isn't related.

Natasha pops the battery and slips the phone into a stranger's pocket and resumes her wait for Rogers. Grimly, she counts the hours since she last slept. It's at least five more than she's comfortable with, approximately six less than her upper limit.

He doesn't trust her but she hopes he trusts her more than he trusts the rest of SHIELD. 

***

He trusts her enough. 

They exit the hospital through the front door. Security cameras near possible points of intrusion mean leaving like they're supposed to have been there is their safest option. She takes in his attire: workout clothes in someone else's size, clearly attained in a hurry. Clothing first, then access to a computer to see what's on the drive. Somewhere public.

"It's good you have me with you," she tells him. "You wouldn't get far wearing that."

"Didn't have time to go shopping."

"Well then, it's your lucky day, Rogers. We're going to the mall."

He doesn't break stride, but he does look at her sharply. "Excuse me?"

"Shopping malls are full of people. Whatever's going on, SHIELD's still not going to want to take you in with a crowd watching. It's also the fastest way to find out what's on the drive and to find you a less conspicuous outfit. I don't own anything in your size."

There's a change of clothing of her own in the trunk of her car, inside her workout bag. SHIELD likely doesn't know yet that they're together, but as she hasn't checked in and their working relationship is well-known, it won't take them too long to figure it out. Not so long, though, that she can't retrieve her clothes.

"We'll need a car. Mine's SHIELD. I can disable the trackers, but it's still too recognizable."

"I can take care of that," he says, surprising her.

"What are you going to do, steal one?"

"I prefer the term borrow."

She's impressed. "Didn't know you had it in you, Rogers."

***

Natasha changes in the back of the car while Steve drives, his gaze trained studiously on the road. His shield is in the trunk, retrieved from the location where he'd hastily stowed it. The plan, such as it is, is for her to go in and buy him a suitable outfit while he waits. Then he'll change, quickly, and they'll head to the Apple store, where she'll access what's on the drive. Everything after that depends on what they find.

Picking out and purchasing the outfit takes her ten minutes. Eight and a half minutes later, she has Rogers looking preppy and sheepish, the thick hipster frames—thankfully still in her workout bag, thankfully large enough to fit him—and baseball cap doing more to disguise him than the drawn-up hoodie and sweatpants ever could. The layers and logos she selected tell a story in themselves: middle-class, college graduate, something adjacent to technology but not as specific or technical as programming. Project management, probably. She's in marketing, she decides. Possibly administration. They met at a fraternity party neither of them wanted to be at. He proposed a month ago. The ring is out for resizing.

It's like breathing, piecing together an identity. Even piecing together two.

Despite her not filling him in on their invented backstory, he does an admirable job following her lead. She's almost proud of him, although he's regrettably slow on the uptake when she spots Rumlow coming up the escalator. He's a hesitant kisser, she discovers, more cautious than he is sloppy, not inexperienced but rusty. By the time Natasha's determined they haven't been made, he's even starting to get the hang of it.

They abandon the car from the hospital. "Think you can get that one started?" she says, pointing to a bright blue Silverado parked on the outer edges of the mall lot. From the layer of dust and condition of the pavement around it, it's been here for several days. If the owner returns, their assumption will be that they've been towed, but it's considerably newer than the borrowed, battered Nissan.

Steve looks at her, then at the car, a slight upward quirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. "Let's find out."

***

The Silverado is a quieter, more comfortable automobile than the Nissan, and Natasha finds herself nodding off. She sleeps through half of Maryland and all of Delaware. When she wakes up, Steve is looking like himself again, more or less, the glasses and hat discarded, attention almost entirely focused on driving. Almost. The slight flicker of his eyes towards her informs her he's aware she's awake.

"You didn't miss anything," he says. "Other than some construction traffic after Baltimore, that is."

"I'm hurt you didn't wake me for an alternate route."

The tracking and location unit she'd set to the coordinates lands in her lap. "Didn't need the backup."

They've slipped back into the habits of their partnership, she recognizes. It makes sense: habits and patterns can be useful in times of uncertainty and elevated stress, providing a necessary structure for teamwork. They're also, frequently, comfortable. And, she admits to herself, comforting.

Nick Fury is—no, was—many things to her. He may have been the person who knew her best, more so even than Clint. What she's been, what she's capable of, what she wants to be. She forces back the ragged, raw edge of grief and focuses her attention on teasing and friendly banter, smiling and joking and wondering if there's any sign left of the emotions beneath.

***

Whatever she expected to find in New Jersey, it's not the ancient history of SHIELD, locked away and hidden in plain sight. If someone hadn't erred in the placement of the building, years ago, they wouldn't have found it at all.

Portraits of Chester Phillips, Howard Stark, and Margaret "Peggy" Carter stare out at them in the dusty space that once held their offices. "Who's the girl?" There's never been a time in her life, before or after, that she didn't know who—and what—Peggy Carter is and was.

Who and what she was to Rogers, to Steve, is a matter of debate for some, a matter of certainty for others. Important, either way. The minute tightening of his jaw answers the question she hadn't asked more thoroughly than words could ever as they walk through the past of the future he didn't have.

Under that.

Under SHIELD.

This is why it was Rogers' apartment he chose.

This is what got him killed.

This is why SHIELD is gunning for Steve.

This time, when her world tilts, it—quite literally—explodes.

***

She doesn't know exactly where they are or how long it's been since Steve dragged them out of the rubble of Camp Lehigh. Her head's still pounding in time with the ringing in her ears and she swears she can feel individual particles of concrete dust every time she takes a breath. She thinks she remembers stumbling into a car; everything after the explosion is patchy. She does know, however, that they're almost certainly not going where she needs them to be.

"We need to make a detour." Talking hurts. Everything hurts. 

"Where to?"

"That depends. Where are we?"

He gives her a sharp, concerned look. "Fifteen minutes outside of Wheaton, heading towards Trenton. Before you ask, we've been driving for close to thirty and it's been nearly an hour since SHIELD dropped a bomb on us. Took me a while to find a car." He pauses. "You've been awake for most of it, but you were pretty out of it for a while there."

"How out of it is pretty out of it? And from here, Manhattan."

"You were muttering in Russian. I think it was probably swearing and I know it was directed at me because it was usually accompanied by your swatting at me whenever I asked you to name the president."

"Matthew Ellis," she says.  

"Didn't ask. After about the fifth or sixth time, I stopped worrying so much."

Steve eases their stolen ride around a sharp bend in the road. "We'll need to switch cars," he says. "Once before we turn back and head to New York and again before we leave New Jersey. Hopefully with an EZ Pass."

"You haven't asked why we're going to Manhattan."

"No, because I figured you'd tell me."

"Drop location with a go bag, off SHIELD's radar. I have a few scattered around the Eastern Seaboard, but Manhattan's the closest."

"How sure are you that it's off SHIELD's radar?"

"As sure as I can be of anything. Not even Barton knows about it."

***

The final count is three cars before the George Washington Bridge. Rogers drives with casual calculation, staying within a few miles of the speed limit, neither slow enough nor fast enough to draw attention. The routes chosen are notable only for their minimal camera coverage. If he had any real ability to sell a lie, she suspects he'd have made a more than passable spy.

He doesn't bother parking the car legally, though he looks a little guilty about leaving it there to be ticketed or towed.

"We're a fifteen-minute walk away. You up for that?"

"We're going the roundabout way and walking like tourists. It's going to take us three times as long." She'd taken a pair of glasses and a Mets cap from the second car they'd stolen. She hands both to Steve before pulling up the hood of her jacket. "Put these on before someone recognizes you."

The glasses go on without hesitation, but he wrinkles his nose at the hat. "Pretty sure no one's going to recognizing me wearing anything with a Mets logo on it," he says, but he puts it on.

Steve's strong opinions about baseball, specifically, the Dodgers and the Mets, are well enough known that he's probably correct. "You can burn it later if you want." It shades his face and hides most of the dirt they don't have time to wash off. Sadly, none of the three cars had wet wipes. "Besides, like you said, no one's going to recognize you in it. Your reputation remains pure."

They walk. Slower than she'd like, faster than they should. He struggles with keeping his pace slow enough to match hers, she compensates. Seven blocks in, the rhythm is as good as it's going to get. Not perfect, but good enough.

"Relax and round your shoulders," she orders. He's not the project manager now. Accountant, maybe. She's a dental hygienist. OK Cupid success story. "Try to look like you're in awe of everything."

"Won't be hard," he replies.

Another block before they'll need to turn left. She's giving thanks for the crowds of a busy night when she notices the footsteps behind them. Two sets, an even pace that's matching theirs. Natasha and Steve make the left, so do they. The cadence of the footfalls doesn't sound military, but that doesn't mean much: there are enough people in the world like her that she knows better than to trust her senses.

"Don't look now," she murmurs, slipping an arm around his waist and closing the already narrow gap between them, "but we might have a tail."

It's all the warning Natasha gives him before she wheels them around so that her back is up against the cold brick surface of the nearest building, the remaining forward momentum driving Steve's chest against hers. This time, he's not as startled when she kisses him, though his breath still hitches when she does. Hitches again when her hands clasp his ass so she can leverage herself up to get a better view of the street from over his shoulder and, though she knows better, she bites at his lower lip, just to get it to happen a third time.

The noise he lets out, somewhere between a whimper and a growl, almost makes her lose her concentration. Almost. The reflexive grind of his pelvis against hers actually does for a split second. Shit. She pulls her mouth away, brings her focus back to the street. The men she'd been watching disappear into a bar, one with his arm loosely around the other's waist. Locals, not tourists. Dating, not yet serious. Coincidence only.

"Not a tail, but we should still double back."

Steve's breathing is rapid and uneven, hot and distracting against her neck. "Okay." He exhales, steps back and repeats. "Okay."

She takes his hand, steering him back the direction they came. "Relax, Rogers." She's careful to keep her voice steady with the slightest hint of playful at the edges. "Just think of it as practice."

The twitch of his jaw is the only response she thinks she'll be getting. Then he lets out a laugh that isn't and says, "Guess that's one way of looking at it."

Under the glow of the street light, she can see that the tips of Steve's ears are flushed a deep red that nearly matches his lips.

***

The rest of their undertaking is uneventful, thankfully. Natasha retrieves the go bag, Steve hotwires another car, then they're back on the road.

"We'll need to get gas in about forty miles. Didn't think to find one with a full tank."

They make it closer to fifty. At the gas station, Natasha opens the bag and pushes the clothing aside. She pulls out the flat iron below that and hands it to Steve so she can get to the cash hidden in the bottom.

"Careful with that; it's weaponized. Stark technology," she says, poker-faced.

"I might have believed you, but I'm pretty sure Stark wouldn't design something hot pink and with a fixed power cord," Steve replies. "He's a little too full of himself not to make it match his armor and he'd make the cord retractable. Besides, I recognize the model."

"You recognize a flat iron."

He shrugs. "They're in the same aisle as the shaving supplies." The near-photographic memory noted in his files apparently doesn't discriminate between enemy bunkers and drugstore aisles.

All but forty dollars of the cash goes back into the bag once she's confirmed the amount. More than enough to hole up in a hotel, but even the cheap ones tend to have security cameras. As do gas stations, which means stealing another car as soon as the gas gets low on this one. The logistics are making her head pound again.

"We're going to need somewhere to regroup," Steve says. "Don't suppose you have any bolt holes close to DC?"

She shakes her head. "It's too risky to have one so close to home, so I never bothered. Anywhere with security cameras is going to be out and there's no one I can trust that I can contact safely." And with Nick dead, she realizes, the only people left that she trusts are Clint and Steve.

To her surprise, Steve's reply is, "I know a guy."

***

Said guy is the man Steve was talking with when she picked him up before the Lemurian Star. Early thirties, ex-military by his bearing. There hadn't been any time for her to identify and investigate him like she'd intended, but that will work to their advantage, assuming he can be trusted. Nothing about him says otherwise, but the same could have been said about many of the identities Natasha's assumed and slipped off. Still, she's willing to go with Steve on this one.

"You can clean up through here," Sam Wilson tells them as he leads them to what appears to be a guest room with an en-suite bath. "Soap's fresh. Towels are clean."

"You first," Steve tells her.

She's not about to argue; her skin is itching in every possible sense of the word.

Natasha rapidly revises her initial assessment of the room: it's Wilson's own, not a guest room, that he's letting them use. The attached bathroom is well-maintained and slightly dated. The vanity's cluttered, but clean, no dust or soap scum evident on it. The sink's been used recently enough that there's still a trace of water beaded on the bowl. Thick grey towels have been carefully folded and neatly aligned on the brass towel bars. They still smell of the laundry room, Downy April Fresh over Tide.

She turns on the shower and lets the water run all the way to hot while she takes the change of clothes and her travel bottles of shampoo and conditioner out of her bag. Then, when the shower is as hot as it will ever be, she strips off her filthy clothing and steps into the spray.

Showers like this are bad for her skin. She's scalded herself more than once in the kinds of places where no one bothers to makes sure the water heaters are set according to safety recommendations, in the kinds of moods where she doesn't care. Showers like this are bad for her skin and she hasn't needed one for a surprisingly long time.

There's body wash on the on the shower rack instead of bar soap. Aveeno Stress Relief. She considers the sort of persona she'd have make that choice. It's a mark in Wilson's favor. She considers the fact that she's evaluating and analyzing someone based on his choice of toiletries.

She assesses her body as she washes off the remains of Camp Lehigh, now that the adrenaline has faded enough for her to do so: the bruising will be minor, which she has Steve to thank for, the lingering headache a lasting one but still manageable. She's been through worse. Physically and, she reminds herself, mentally.

Usually, though, she's better prepared. She switches the shower from boiling hot to bracingly cold and when she can no longer stand that, she gets out, gives her body a perfunctory pass with the towel, and puts on a clean change of clothes. They smell faintly like the inside of the bag they've been in for the last year and a half.

"I saved you some hot water," she tells Steve.

"Thanks." And he smiles. "But I think I'm skipping the shower for now."

He leaves the door to the bathroom open and she watches him wipe off the worst of the dirt with the familiar efficient motions of someone used to making do while she dries her hair. They talk. Wilson feeds them breakfast, loans Steve something clean to wear, taking it all surprisingly in stride.

When he brings out the file, one she knows he shouldn't have, and she realizes who Sam Wilson is and what he's done, she understands why. She also understands why here, why him: Wilson is made of the same fabric as Rogers. Kindness in his eyes, steel in his spine. Like to like.

She shrugs when the topic of retrieving his wings comes up, lets Rogers do the talking. Getting the wings is going to be the easiest part of getting Sitwell and finding out what he knows.

"Of course," she says after a moment, "this is all assuming you have a car."

"Yeah," he says, giving her a wide smile. "I've got a car."

***

Their destination's a quiet house in the suburbs outside of DC.

"Pull into the third driveway on your right," she tells Wilson from the back seat.

Steve turns and looks at her. "Thought you said you didn't have any bolt holes near DC."

"I don't. This is a work location."

"Is that safe?"

"We're not here for long. Besides, the only other person who knew this place existed is dead."

"You're telling me SHIELD didn't know about this."

"Plausible deniability. Sometimes SHIELD needed not to know."

"Did Fury teach you that?" he asks. The set of his jaw says volumes.

"He didn't need to."

***

In the closet by the door, there's a safe containing everything she'll need to get into and, more importantly, out of the facility. She enters the combination and retrieves what she needs before heading to the master bedroom. There's a thin layer of dust on the furniture set she selected when they set things up and the alarm clock beside the bed is blinking 12:00. She hasn't been here since Emily Bowen purchased the house nearly a year ago. Emily Bowen's taste in interior design is influenced strongly by Real Simple and Dwell. The dust would be entirely out of character for her, or it would if she existed.

Natasha gets dressed, dons the dark brown wig with its blunt bangs and base of the neck bun that she'd chosen based on one of Hill's hairstyles. She modeled a non-trivial amount of Emily Bowen after Maria Hill, partly to make it easier to don the persona in the sort of emergency it was designed for, largely because the sort of emergency Emily Bowen was designed for is the sort that Hill would handle in its SHIELD-sanctioned equivalent.

***

"How familiar are you with the area around Fort Meade?" she asks Wilson when she comes out, interrupting the quiet, seemingly intense conversation he's having with Steve.

"Pretty damn familiar."

"You two rendezvous with me at the Dunkin' Donuts on Annapolis in an hour and a half. Leave your car unlocked."

He smiles, wide and open. It reminds her of Steve and yet not. "Want us to get you anything?"

"Coffee and a Boston Kreme." She pulls out the keys to Emily Bowen's Oxford White 2008 Ford Explorer and opens the door to the attached garage. "See you boys there."

At the rendezvous point, herself again, Natasha puts the EXO-7 wings, safely hidden in an IKEA bag, into Wilson's trunk and heads in to meet them. Wilson hands her the coffee. It's pale with cream and contains enough sugar to be sticky on her tongue.

"Steve told me that's how you take it when you're working. Not judging you," he says, handing her the bag containing the donut, "but man, there's more sugar in there than there is in this thing."

***

Sitwell cracks faster than she would have expected. A small part of her would like to think remorse is at the heart of it. She'd liked him.

Zola's plan, as Sitwell explains it, is both horrifying and impressive. She doesn't want to think too closely about how who she was before would have felt about it, if the horror would even have registered. She hopes it would have, but she'll never really know.

"So how do we stop this?" Wilson asks.

Voice tight and face grim, Rogers answers, "However we can."

***

The Winter Soldier, no longer confined to the shadows, is a brutal, unstoppable force. Not because of who he is, because of who he was. The physical shock of a gunshot through her shoulder seems minor in comparison to the shock of Steve Rogers falling unresisting to his knees, his eyes bleak and hollow with disbelief and grief. She's never seen him with the fight taken out of him. She hadn't known it was possible.

 _This is the way the world ends,_ she thinks, acutely aware of how rapidly she's losing blood. It's almost funny and not at all. At least she'll die in good company.

It's probably the shock that makes her want to laugh hysterically when Maria Hill pulls off her helmet. It's what she'll blame later for the Star Wars joke she makes to Hill as Hill helps her into the getaway vehicle.

***

She is unprepared for finding out that Fury's alive, for learning that, for all he's the person who knows her best, the person she trusts the most, he didn't trust her with his life and assumed death. He let her grieve him. In all likelihood, counted on it. The worst is that she understands: he's right to tell her that in his shoes, she'd have done the same. That doesn't mean it doesn't sting.

***

As far as sleeping accommodations go, Nick's secret bunker isn't exactly a five-star hotel. It's not even a second-rate youth hostel. Outside of the makeshift medical bay, everything's clearly military surplus. Steel framed cots with olive drab wool blankets line the back wall, uncomfortably close to the handful of bucket latrines.

"Power's easy enough to set up," Nick tells them over their MREs, once the plan is in place. "Indoor plumbing's a hell of a lot more trouble and a hell of a lot lower on the list of priorities."

"Just like old times." Any humor in Steve's response is belied by the grimness of his expression.

She watches him consume his meal with the precise repetition of an automaton: spoon to plate, spoon to mouth, chew, swallow, repeat. With what they're eating, it's probably for the best that the food itself doesn't seem to be registering. Grimly, she takes another bite of hers. Wilson's eating with the same focused precision as Rogers, but every so often, his eyes go to her shoulder, to Steve's face.

Whatever concerns he has, though, he doesn't voice them. She doubts he will in public.

***

Captain America has ordered the troops, such as they are, to get some rest before the coming battle. Steve Rogers is utterly failing to follow his own orders. Instead, he's standing near the entrance, far away from the sleeping occupants of the cots. He's deep in thought, the focused look on his face the one he gets when he's working on strategy in his head, playing out movements and countermovements, accounting for as many contingencies as he can.

"Didn't you tell us all to get some sleep?" she says, sidling up and elbowing him with the side that didn't take a bullet, even though whatever Nick's medical team did, her shoulder is barely hurting.

"I'm not the one who needs it."

"You telling me to go to bed, Rogers?"

"If I did, would you?" He raises his eyebrows at the lack of response that is her answer. "Didn't think so. You're welcome to keep me company. I can't promise I'll be good company, though."

"That makes two of us."

He hesitates, obviously weighing something. He looks over at the cots, to where the small group of people Fury did trust with his life and death are slumbering. Then he asks, "Want to go hotwire a car and help me break into the Smithsonian?"

Natasha thinks she does an admirable job of hiding her surprise. "Why? Are we stealing fossils."

He leans his head back against the wall, a wry, weary smile on his face. "Something like that, yeah."

"Does Fury know?"

"He's gonna want plausible deniability for this one if he ever decides to officially come back from the dead."

***

Unlike Fort Meade, they actually have to break in to get what Rogers needs. Unlike Camp Lehigh, they can't just brute force their way in.

"How were you planning on doing this without me?" she asks.

"Well, I thought about just going in the front door, but seeing as it's closed, I'd settled on getting in and out as quickly as I could instead."

She's memorized the schematics and security for every building the museum has, all the entrances, exits, and overrides. The Air and Space Museum got her particular attention, all because of the very thing they're seeking. The comfort of habits, patterns, and the familiar again, wrapped up in the form of his old uniform. Steve parks the car several blocks away, shouldering the pack he commandeered, and lets her lead the way.

It takes a matter of minutes for her to disable to disable the security systems. It takes him only slightly longer to strip the featureless mannequin, leaving it to command its troop of ghosts without the symbol of its rank so he can go face the one that matters most.

She finishes resetting the last of the cameras and alarms. "You know Fury will have realized we're gone by now, right?"

He shrugs. Smiles. "We got what we came for."

He leads the way back to the car, almost, but not quite, following the same path they took going in. They're nearly back to where he parked when he stops, ducking into the shadows and pulling her with him. Then he lowers his head.

It's a brush of his lips, barely even a kiss, but it leaves her startled. From his expression, it leaves him startled, too.

"See someone, Rogers?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

He blinks and shakes his head. "No."

"Then what was that about?"

Somewhere, a drunk's shouting incoherent vulgarities at someone or something. A car is honking. Steve remains quiet except for the soft inhale and exhale of his breathing. Finally, he says, "Luck, maybe."

To hell with it. Natasha pulls him back down until his mouth is level with hers and kisses him, no barely about it this time.

When they break apart, he asks, "See someone?"

Catlike, she smiles. "Figure we can use all the luck we can get, Rogers."

***

Against all odds, their plan succeeds. Now they'll have to count the cost. It will be high. As Wilson and Hill search for Rogers, she realizes it may be far, far higher than she had thought.

***

While there are several people Natasha likes, even some that she'd count as more than friendly acquaintances, there are precious few who matter—truly, deeply matter—to her. She's already been through the shock and pain of losing one this week, no matter that the loss turned out an illusion. For several hours after they find Rogers on the bank of the Potomac, half-drowned and bleeding, his face bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition, she's terrified that she's about to lose another, this time with no chance of it being anything other than final. She's more terrified, perhaps, that she's somehow added another person whose loss she could not easily bear.

This time, she can't watch. She buries her hands in the pockets of a borrowed hoodie, several sizes too large, and waits for word.

"Rogers is out of surgery. He'll make it," Hill says when she comes out to join her. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll live. How's Wilson?"

"A few cuts and bruises. He'll be feeling it for a few weeks, but no serious damage. You should let him know about Rogers."

She finds Sam in the waiting area of the ER, bandaged up and smelling of smoke and stale sweat. When he sees her, he sets down the dog-eared issue of Sports Illustrated he'd been holding and not reading. He stands and looks at her, jaw tight and eyes steady.

"Hey," she says by way of greeting.

Relief on his face, irritation in his voice, he replies. "I'm gonna assume by that you mean, 'Hey, Sam. Just thought you'd like to know, Steve's going to pull through."

Okay. She deserved the sarcasm. "Hey, Sam. Just thought you'd like to know, Steve's going to pull through."

She's suddenly, sharply aware that the anesthetic in her shoulder probably wore off hours ago. She's suddenly aware of a lot of things, though she's not aware that she's started shaking until she feels Sam's hands on her upper arms, carefully guiding her to his vacated seat.

"You okay?" He looks worried, she notices, distantly. She should probably say something, do something other than to stare at him blankly. "Not going to pass out on me or anything, are you? Cause if you think that's gonna happen, I'm going to want to get a doctor over here pretty damn soon."

Natasha shakes her head, the room slowly coming back into focus. The dressing on her shoulder feels heavier than it should be, sticky. "There's some bleeding. It's nothing."

Sam goes to rub his temples, dropping his hands with a hiss of pain when his fingers hit the bruised and broken skin there. "Did you bother to get checked out at all after we found Steve, or did you just think you could tough it out? You know what? Don't tell me. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like the answer."

"Every emergency room in the DC Metro area is overflowing with casualties. An injury that's already been assessed and treated isn't a priority. I've lived through worse with less in the way of treatment. Several times."

"Anyone ever tell you and Steve that you're a couple of idiots? You do know it's not a weakness to admit you might need a little help, right?"

"Anything can be a weakness in the right hands."

It's not something he wants to hear and his lips tighten in response. Gently, he takes her right hand and presses it to her shoulder. "Keep pressure on it. If it doesn't stop bleeding in about ten, let me know."

"Are you angry with him?"

"Hell yeah," he says. He stops, swallows hard before admitting, "Not his fault, not really. I didn't think he'd make it, not in the kind of shape he was in when the ambulance got there. Two tours of rescue missions, you get to be an awfully good judge when it comes to that sort of thing."

For very different reasons, she shares that particular ability. She'd seen the same thing Sam had seen. "He did, though," she says, quietly, needing for some reason to say it aloud.

He gives her a tired smile, says, "Yeah, he did, didn't he?" Then he looks around the crowded room and swears under his breath. "You know somewhere private we can talk?"

***

She doesn't, but Hill does. From the armed guards in the hallway, it's clear that the room Hill leads them to is intended for Rogers. From the look they give her and Sam, it's also clear that they've already been authorized for entry once he's been moved here.

There's a visitor's chair next to the bed. Sam looks at it, then at her, then slumps down into it as soon as he registers the small shake of her head.

"I have to go see my mom in a few days," he tells her. "Promised her a while back I'd come up, celebrate her birthday, take her out to put flowers on Dad's grave." At her raised brows, he continues. "I'll be gone for two weeks. Already put in the vacation request and everything. Didn't exactly plan on helping Captain America take down HYDRA when I made my vacation plans and I sure as hell didn't think I'd be worrying about where he's staying after he gets out of the hospital."

"You want me to look after him."

"Until I get back, yeah."

***

She's been standing outside Steve's room for at least an hour when Nick finds her. He's hiding in plain sight, dressed in muted browns and greys, an old man's pair of tinted glasses covering half his face.

"You need a cup of coffee and then you need to get home and get some sleep. Meet me in half an hour. You know where."

***

The cafe is old, cash only with deep booths and enough of a customer base to always be half full, not enough of one that there's ever much of a wait. She slides into a booth at the back, the one with the clear sightlines and decent exit strategy. He's already ordered her a cup of coffee and, based on the scattering of crystals on the table, added the sugar to it as well. She closes her hand around the warmth of the mug and waits for him to tell her whatever it is he knows she needs to hear.

"I don't regret what I did, Natasha." Nick observes her carefully for a moment before shaking his head with a sigh. He looks tired. "What I do regret is that it was necessary."

"I know." She's been saying that to him a lot since he pulled his Lazarus act. She's not sure which one of them she's reassuring.

"Look, people like us, we do what a lot of people can't and we do it so that they don't have to. And there's a cost to that. It's our job to make damn sure it's worth the cost. For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry you have to pay it."

She takes a sip before answering; the coffee is almost syrupy-sweet in her mouth, still hot enough to almost burn. "So am I."

"You did good, Agent Romanoff."

"I did my job."

He pulls out the money for the coffee, tossing it on the beige formica as he eases his way out of the booth. "Damn right you did. Now go home and get some rest."

"Nick?" She reaches out, fingers resting lightly against the hand in the sling. "Thanks."

She thinks he smiles. "Some rest, Romanoff. That's an order."

***

This is not the first time. She scratches the cat behind its ears and stifles a yawn. The movie she put on when she got home plays unwatched. It doesn't matter: she knows every frame, every beat of it, and it's soothing white noise at best. Nothing remarkable, just a circa 1980s movie about teenage angst and rebellion, one of the many she associates with her training. This is not the first time. She's been shot before and she's survived that. She's seen the ugliness beneath everything she knew and believed in before and she's survived that. She's had to remake herself, over and over and over.

This is no different.

Nick ordered her to get some rest, but Nick's not in charge of giving her orders, not anymore. For the first time in her remembered life, there's no one in charge. The third time she yawns, Natasha stops the movie and turns off the television. Nick's not in charge of giving her orders, but he's right: she needs to rest. She's tired enough that she doesn't kick the cat off when it settles in beside her on the bed, its bony frame curled tight on her extra pillow.

***

Natasha plops the obnoxiously cheerful and criminally overpriced teddy bear she got at the hospital gift shop down next to a half-eaten tray of hospital food and sits down in the uncomfortable chair next to Steve's bed.

"Hear they're letting you out of here soon," she says.

"Day after tomorrow, or so they say." He scratches at the white gauze taped over where one of the IV ports had been.

The swelling's gone down considerably just in the time since she left to meet Nick. The bruising that was red and fresh then is now purple, already shifting green with biliverdin around the edges. By tomorrow, they should be faded to yellow. He looks tired. From what both Hill and Wilson have told her, he's spent most of the time since she left the hospital asleep.

"Feeling okay?" she asks.

"Y'know, I think this is the first time in my life I haven't looked forward to getting out of a hospital."

"Oh yeah?"

"Can't exactly go home, seeing as home is technically a crime scene. There's still blood on the floor and bullet holes in the plaster. Pretty sure that means I don't get my deposit back."

His bank account, any assets he may have, are almost certainly frozen. SHIELD would have taken care of that before he even left the building and in the chaos, it's unlikely that will be resolved anytime soon. "If you think you can handle the latrines, I bet Fury would let you have his bunker."

"If I can't figure out a better option before Sam's back, I might have to find out."

"Well, I owe you," she says, lightly. Sam's left it up to her to offer. "So I guess you can stay with me."

"Sure, just as long as you've got indoor plumbing."

"What, otherwise you'll take your chances with Fury?"

Steve makes a soft sound, somewhere between a hum and a laugh. It takes her a moment to recognize it as a chuckle. "Something like that, yeah."

***

Very few people have been inside her apartment. Clint occasionally, Fury twice. Her landlord and the carefully-vetted plumber she used when her sink backed up and again when her toilet overflowed are the only others. No one, not even Clint after a late-running mission, has ever spent the night.

It's not a situation she's prepared for.

The apartment itself is small, little more than a place for her to sleep and eat between missions than anything else. She chose the furniture for practicality, which means most of it came in flat packs from IKEA. The sofa, which did not, is just long enough for her to stretch out on, certainly too short for Steve. She'll have to give up her bed.

By design, very little of what she owns has visible personal significance. Still, she briefly considers carefully packing away the few things that do, even knowing full well that they're meaningless without their context. A vase that reminds her of a childhood memory she's not sure is real, the copy of _Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go_ that Nick gave her, a framed print that was the first thing bought for herself after she joined SHIELD.

She'll need to rent a car. Slightly easier than stealing one, at least.

She'll need to change the litterbox, too. Her entire apartment smells vaguely like cat shit.

***

Natasha stands in front of the medicine cabinet, watching her reflection as she painstakingly removes the dressing on her shoulder. The face reflected back at her looks haggard and wan, a slight sheen of oil across the forehead and nose, the lips pale and slightly chapped. She doesn't let herself be seen like this, not as herself, at any rate. But, as Steve's being discharged in an hour, it's regrettably unavoidable.

She drops the old dressing into the garbage and scrubs her hands thoroughly before starting in on the tedious task of replacing it with a new one. She's almost done when the cat bumps against her leg, jostling her just enough to hurt like hell.

"Ow," she tells it. "I hope you know I can evict you."

It just blinks its mustard eyes at her and strolls over to the newly-cleaned litterbox.

"Well, that's just lovely," she mutters, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

***

Steve takes up very little space for someone so large. What he arrives with fits in the small rucksack Sam must have packed, clothes tightly rolled, toiletries just the essentials. She watches him apologetically set out his shaving gear (a blue disposable razor and a travel can of shaving cream instead of the safety razor and mug of shaving soap she knows he prefers) and toothbrush and toothpaste (travel-sized again, part of the same airplane pack as the razor and shaving cream), arranging them so they use as little of the room she cleared for him on the counter as possible. The deodorant and shampoo remain for some reason in the clear plastic travel case.

He gestures at the litterbox. "Didn't know you had a cat."

"I don't. I have a stray that thinks it lives here."

"Which is why it has a litterbox. And why you have cans of cat food on the kitchen counter."

Grudgingly, she admits, "There's a bag of kibble in one of the cupboards, too, but that doesn't mean it's my cat."

***

Though he's hiding it well, Steve's obviously exhausted. Not surprising, given that he nearly died a few days ago and most people would still be tied to their morphine drip right now. He stares heavy-eyed at the movie she's put on to pass the time while they wait for the pizza she ordered for dinner to show up and nearly falls asleep over his third slice after it does.

"You know where the bedroom is," she says, taking his plate out of his hands. "Go sleep before you pass out."

He tries to argue with her about the sleeping arrangements again, just like he did when she put his bag in there in the first place. "I can't put you out of your own bed, Nat, not when you're already putting me up."

"Refusal's not an option Rogers," she tells him. "You don't fit on my couch."

***

Natasha doesn't recall falling asleep. She must have, considering that she startles awake in yesterday's clothes, light streaming in through the gaps in the white plastic blinds. Steve's already up, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, neither of which quite fit. The jeans are too large through the hips and waist while the shirt pulls awkwardly at the shoulders.

"Sam's?" Yesterday's sweats probably were.

It takes a second for him to get what she's asking. "He loaned me a few things."

She pushes off the blanket he must have draped over her and breathes in the scent of freshly-brewed coffee. The bruising is faded enough now that it's barely visible at all.

"You're healing nicely," she says, getting up and heading towards the coffee smell.

He already has a cup ready and hands it to her. "Comes with the territory. You?"

"Sore. Whatever Fury's people used means it'll heal pretty quickly, but strapless dresses are probably in the same category as bikinis now."

A half-smile pulls at healing skin that's only a few days out from having been a mess of stitches and blood. "You need any help changing the dressing? I can see it through your shirt and it's probably overdue for it."

She only hesitates for a moment before accepting.

***

"You've done this before." She's sitting at her kitchen table, watching as Steve scrubs his hands. Everything he'll need is already precisely arranged beside her.

"More than a few times," he replies as he peels the old dressing away from her shoulder. "We didn't always have the benefit of soap and water back then, either."

His brow is furrowed slightly in concentration, but he looks almost relaxed, now that he has something tangible and useful to do.

***

Natasha takes pity on his wardrobe and buys him some clothing that actually fits, basic t-shirts and jeans to tide him over until he's able to get his own. It's not wise for him to go out in public, so she runs the errand herself. It's a nice day, sunny and clear. People are going about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened, as if the chaos and destruction she helped rain down upon the city had never taken place.

She picks up groceries while she's out. Beer, more coffee, plain yogurt, more cans of cat food. Smiles blandly at the bagger, who's looking at her as if he knows who she is and disapproves of her very existence. He probably does. He wouldn't be the first. She's just not used to seeing it from the person bagging her groceries.

***

It's clear that the cat, traitor that it is, has decided it likes Steve best. It's winding itself around his ankles, demanding his attention with a scratchy meow. He smiles at it as he gives in to its demands, leaning down and scratching it beneath its chin.

"Does the cat have a name?" he asks.

It blinks at her from its place at his feet, looking smug. Captain America's new best friend. "No."

"Because it's not your cat."

"Because it's not my cat." She could almost swear its eyes narrow before the cat yawns. Its teeth are sharp and surprisingly white. There's a spot of black on the pink of its tongue.

***

It is her cat.

She drops Steve off at the nursing home where Peggy Carter is living out her days. Then she goes to a pet store and picks out a cheap cat carrier while she makes an appointment with a vet. At home, she somehow wrestles the cat into said carrier and drags it to said vet. By the time they're finished there, the cat has been evaluated, assessed, poked, and prodded until it's perfectly willing to make its displeasure known, swatting at her hands and leaving another line of scratches to match the ones she has from putting it into the carrier.

Steve's withdrawn when she retrieves him. "Bad day," he says. "But it's probably for the best."

***

"Where's the cat?" he asks, obviously expecting it to come running out to greet him like it does whenever he's been gone from its presence for more than a couple of minutes.

"Hiding. I took her to the vet. She's not pleased."

"She?" The raised eyebrows and slight smile make the scratches on her arms almost seem worth it.

Natasha shrugs. "That's what the vet says."

The vet said a lot of things: the cat is at best guess two to five years old, spayed, and clearly at one time was someone's pet, though there's no microchip.

"Does she have a name yet?"

"Liho," she says.

"Doesn't she have too many eyes for that?"

"You understood that reference. I'm impressed."

***

"Technology like they used on this should be available to everyone." Steve is helping her change her dressings again, cleaning around the edges of a wound that's obviously healing faster than would be considered normal.

"The costs are astronomical and most of what SHIELD developed never moved beyond experimental." She shifts the arm, testing it. Her range of motion will be nearly uncompromised. "Frequently, a lot of the side effects ended up being worse than what the technology was intended to cure."

Though he doesn't say anything, she can see his desire to argue in the tightening of his lips.

"Not everything that should be fixed can be," she adds, gently.

"I know that Nat, believe me." His voice is more tired than it is bitter.

***

When he asks, almost apologetically, she lets him borrow her laptop, knowing full well he's going to be digging into SHIELD's files. He'd have found a way to access them somehow. It's safer for him to do it here than anywhere else. He's reading them when she goes to sleep, still at it when she wakes up. From the number of pages spread out on the table in front of him, he's probably used up the bulk of her printer paper.

"You look like you had a fun night," she says.

"A lot of things were done in SHIELD's name that are hard to stomach, even when HYDRA wasn't involved."

"A lot of good was done, too."

"I'm not sure that kind of thing can ever balance out." She's never been under the illusion that Rogers is unaware of her history; Fury told her that he'd requested her files shortly after being told of their partnership. Nevertheless, she's not entirely prepared to hear him say, "You know, a lot of things about you don't quite add up, Nat."

She quirks a brow at him in response, waiting to see where he's planning on going from there.

"The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. You were seven."

"I started young." It's not a lie.

His forehead is slightly furrowed like he's trying to decide if he wants to say or ask something else. Natasha stares at him, idly counting the flecks of color in his irises, and waits. She doesn't have to wait long.

"There's nothing directly about him that I've been able to find in SHIELD's files." He doesn't need to specify to whom he's referring. "Not beyond what we saw from Zola. But there's a name that comes up repeatedly in relation to Zola. A Russian he worked with closely. It also comes up in some of the earliest files SHIELD had on you."

The Red Room and beyond. Soviet slugs, no rifling. "You think I can help you find out what happened to Barnes."

"If the information I'm looking for even exists, I think you know how to find it."

"You're stubborn, Steve. You should be careful. It'll get you in trouble someday."

He laughs with a rueful shake of his head. "Someday?"

"I mean the kind of trouble you can't get out of." After a moment, she tells him, "I'll see what I can do."

***

There are questions she has for him: is this how he felt when he woke up and everything he thought he knew was gone? Unmoored, uncentered? Is that how he feels now or did he never have the same faith in SHIELD that she apparently did? If she thought he could answer, perhaps she would ask. If she thought it would be at all helpful, she knows she would.

Instead, she grabs two bottles of Pacifico from the top shelf of the refrigerator and chops a lime while he browses Netflix. She hopes she doesn't regret letting Steve choose the movie. This is their new routine: movies have replaced maneuvers and their only orders involve take out or pizza. Even this will change soon enough. Sam's returning at the end of the week.

"Bottle or glass?" she asks Steve.

He sets down the remote. "Bottle's fine."

She hands him his beer and sits down. "Not finding anything?"

"Not sure there's anything to find."

They watched cartoons in the Red Room. Cartoons and movies and situation comedies. American, primarily. Her handlers claimed you could learn a lot about a country from its media. It's simplistic framework, she recognizes now. Reactions to media are far more telling than the media itself.

"Have you seen _Speed_? It's—"

"A movie, and yes. Hill recommended it after New York."

Natasha files that information away and stretches out her legs until her bare feet are resting on the solid warmth of his thighs. "Who recommended _War Games_? Nick?"

"Netflix." His hand brushes against her instep as he leans back. "Although in hindsight, I guess he might have had something to do with it."

"Directly manipulating Netflix isn't his style." Indirectly manipulating it with recommendations specifically targeted to have a particular effect on the service's algorithm is far closer.

"What are you going to do now that SHIELD's gone?" he asks. Maybe he has some of the same questions for her that she has for him.

"Take some time off, figure out who I'll need to be next."

"What about who you want to be?"

"It's not that simple, Rogers."

"Be nice if it was, though, wouldn't it?" He pauses for a moment before asking, "Mind if we don't watch anything?"

"Got anything else in mind?"

"No. I don't know. Guess it's just nice to have company."

"Yeah," she takes a swallow of her beer. It needs more lime. "It is."

***

Steve's telling her stories from the war, stories she suspects most people wouldn't expect to hear coming from Captain America.

"When I was still selling war bonds, someone thought it would be a good idea to have Captain America star in a film on sex hygiene. 'Men, don't let venereal disease keep us from victory! Test each rubber with two cups of water!' It didn't go over so well. They scratched the whole idea and destroyed the film." He grins, shaking his head. "Howard always claimed he'd managed to salvage it, but there's no way it wouldn't have surfaced by now."

His eyes are bright with laughter. He looks young and alive in a way she hasn't seen on him before. Vital.

"Don't take this the wrong way Rogers, but—" she leans over and kisses him, her right hand curving around the back of his head.

It's slow. Nice. The soft bristle of his hair beneath her palm, the pressure of his hand at the small of her back, warm and steady through the thin cotton of her shirt. When he pulls away, his breathing is only slightly faster than normal, but his pupils are wide.

"What's the wrong way to take that?" he asks. His hand is still resting at the base of her spine.

She's not sure how to answer. She's not sure why she gave in to the impulse in the first place.

He smiles, a little wryly. "It's fine, Nat. I know you're not looking for anything. Right now, neither am I."

"Didn't think you were the kind of fellow who went for casual."

"I'm not, but that's not what this is. We're friends. Friends help each other out. Besides, you're the one who told me I needed practice."

"So," she says a while later, breaking away to look at him. His hand's beneath her shirt and she can feel the faint callouses on his fingertips as he traces the curve of her spine.

"So." There's a hint of concern in his eyes. "You sure you're okay with this?"

Startled, she laughs. "I thought that was something I'd be asking you."

***

They end up stretched awkwardly across her sofa, clothing askew, breathing heavily.

"I haven't done this in a while," she admits, pulling her shirt over her head. "You might not be the only one who needs practice."

Slipping to the floor, he hooks his fingers beneath the waistband of her yoga pants, looking up at her as he gently tugs them off. "How long is a while?"

"Before Manhattan. A few months before Manhattan."

One of the few times where she used building an identity as an excuse for human contact. It wasn't especially memorable beyond that, which is one of the many reasons she hasn't bothered since. Even if it had been, the amount of vetting necessary even for a brief fling under an assumed name is a strong deterrent.

"I've got you beat."

"Well, we can't all be Tony Stark."

"Or Howard." Steve drops a kiss on her belly and she feels him smile against her skin. "Hell, most of the Howling Commandos, even."

He stops talking then, his mouth on her belly, her thighs, her hips, his hands brushing lightly across her breasts, down her waist, coming to rest at the crease of her thighs, holding them open as he buries his face between them. She sucks in a breath at the first stroke of his tongue, steady and confident. Before long, she's grinding up against his face, her fingers buried in his hair as he licks and sucks until she's panting helplessly, legs shaking as she comes, his mouth on her clit, his finger pressing and curling inside her.

Natasha's hands fall to her sides. He kisses the inside of her left thigh before sitting up, face flushed and wet, his hands resting on her spread legs. With a quick shift of her hips, she slides off the sofa to straddle his lap, her back resting against the cushions.

"Where'd Captain America learn to do that? Tell me it's not Nazi Germany."

The laugh is surprisingly rueful. "Brooklyn. Got a little practice in with the USO, but Bucky taught me pretty much everything I know."

"James Barnes taught you that?"

"I'd explain. Probably easier just to show you, though." Steve takes hold of her hands, gently maneuvering them until the outside edges of her pinkies and palms are pressed together and her fingers and thumbs are cupped into a loose heart. "Hold them like that," he instructs, leaving his own hands curled around hers, his thumbs resting lightly on her index fingers.

Then he dips his head until his mouth's almost touching her hands and exhales. She shivers at the heat of his breath, inhales sharply when it's followed by the soft press of his tongue slipping around the edges of her overlapped thumbs, then down to the undersides of her fingers before circling back.

"Jesus," she exhales.

He hums a response as he closes his mouth over her thumbs and sucks, the index finger of his right hand slipping down to caress her palm.

"As much fun as this is, if we don't take this to the bedroom within the next sixty seconds, Rogers, I may be forced to consider disciplinary action."

Looking up at her through his lashes, he lifts his head slightly and grins. He's half-kneeling on the floor and his hands have dropped to spread over the spring of her hips. "Oh yeah?"

She slides her hands to the sides of his face and ducks her head. "Yeah."

The taste of her body is sharp on her lips, foreign for all that it's a part of her.

***

"Don't suppose you have a rubber in here?" Steve asks. He's on his back, eyes dark and lips red.

As unlikely as it's ever been that she'll get to use them, Natasha keeps a box of condoms in the top drawer of her bedside table. When they expire, she replaces them. Scheduled delivery. It makes her life seem far more interesting than it actually is.

She pulls one out and hands it to him. "Going to show me what you learned on that film set?"

"Hardly." He laughs. Then he closes his eyes and swallows. He sounds sheepish when he says, "Just to warn you, this is the part I never got a chance to practice."

She's surprised and yet not. "Good thing we've got a couple of days before Sam gets back," she says. She helps him roll the condom on, then slowly lowers herself onto him, guides his hand between them so his thumb is pressed against her clit. "Plenty of time to practice."

The rhythm she sets starts off slow and easy, but it soon grows as rapid and ragged as their breathing. She watches the expressions shift across his face, his wide-eyed amazement as he loses control doing more to tip her into orgasm than anything.

***

Liho hops up on the bed sometime after, walking across Natasha to get to Steve and meowing for his attention. Natasha puts up with it until her cat decides to settle uncomfortably on her naked breasts.

"Out with you," she says, picking her up and ejecting her from the room. She shuts the door firmly so the cat won't be able to get back in.

She goes back to the bed, sprawling up against Steve and feeling an alarming kinship with her cat. They're both going to miss him.

Steve reaches out to brush an errant strand of hair from her face and lets his hand linger, thumb caressing her lower lip. His eyes are half-closed, lashes throwing deep shadows against his cheeks. Something deep in her gut twists, resigned and resentful that her life doesn't, can't, allow for this to be more than it is. Natasha pushes the thought as far away as she can, hums as she pulls his thumb into her mouth, tracing the whorls with her tongue. Takes pleasure from the sudden hitch in his breath, from the way his other hand tightens on her hip. He's hard again, pressed hot against her belly.

"Natasha," he says her name like a plea or a warning. The hand on her hip moves down between her legs. "Nat."

She releases his thumb, twists to pull another foil packet out of the box, and presses it into his hand. "Need any help?"

He squeezes her fingers as he takes it from her, just long enough that she knows he's seen through her bluff, even if he'll never call her on it. "Think I've got it figured out, but thanks."

He smiles and she grins back at him. "Then suit up, soldier."

***

It hasn't changed their friendship, not really. She doubts they'll ever discuss it outside this bubble of time. It's something private, secret. That's for the best.

***

When she wakes up the day Sam is scheduled to return, Steve is standing by the bedroom window, the morning sun turning his sleep-rumpled hair into a soft halo of dull gold. He seems unreal and out of place until he sighs, a heavy, weary exhalation of breath. For a fleeting moment, she sees him more clearly than she ever has before, more clearly even than she thinks he can see himself, and it terrifies her.

Then he gives a minute shake of his head as if to clear his thoughts. Any assumption she's made about him thinking himself unobserved vanishes when he turns and looks at her, a small smile on his face, his eyebrows raised in question.

She raises hers in return, letting an amused half-smile tease at her lips. "Need any help packing?" she asks.

"Already done. I didn't exactly bring a lot with me. You feel like getting breakfast?"

***

She takes him to the cafe where two weeks ago, she was sitting in the same booth with Nick while Steve lay sleeping in a hospital bed. The pancakes are good and the coffee is bottomless.

"You'll need to lie low for a while," she tells him. "Every elected official who's not HYDRA is still going to be gunning for you. They'll want someone to blame for this."

"That's okay. I kind of need a break. It's been a busy month."

Natasha smiles and steals a forkful of his hashbrowns.

***

The apartment is quiet without him, even after a week. She listens to the rats scurrying and fighting in the walls, a muffled drama that plays out between the futile visits from pest control. It seems louder than usual.

"You could earn your keep," she tells Liho, who just butts a cheek against Natasha's hand, too impatient to wait for petting to resume.

Tomorrow, she'll speak at the hearing. Fifteen days from now, she and Liho will be on the road, rebuilding her collection of identities. The things she wants to keep are safely packed away, the boxes sent to a drop location and instructions sent to Clint in a series of text messages using the private code they set up years ago. Old habits, as they say, die hard.

The file from Kiev, the one Steve asked for, is sitting next to her laptop. The little she's read, she wishes, for many reasons, she hadn't. But she still owes him and she promised she'd do this.

Two days later, when she hands it to him, she spares a thought for all the things that could never be. He deserves to be happy. She wishes she believed he'll get to have that. She wishes she didn't need to leave him with a warning she knows will go unheeded.

***

Even though they've only known her for a short time, ask any of her co-workers at the bookshop and they could tell you that Natalka Rutka was named after her great-grandmother, dreams of a career in library science if she can ever save up the money for grad school on her meager salary, and volunteers for a few hours a week at the no-kill shelter down the street.

She seldom wears makeup and can't stand the feeling of contact lenses, even though she hates how she looks in glasses. She swears her laugh sounds like a donkey's and jokes about how she hasn't had a date in years, but that's okay: she has her cat. She's earnest, idealistic, and Natasha likes her far more than she ever liked Natalie Rushman.

She's not who Natasha is, but she's someone she wouldn't mind being. 

Natasha will miss her in a week or two, when a family emergency will force her to break the lease on the tiny efficiency she can barely afford and move back home.

Natasha won't, however, miss the efficiency. Neither will Liho, who finds the lack of closets and cabinets to sulk in an affront to her dignity.

Natalka's in bed, texting one of her co-workers, when Natasha's own phone unexpectedly chimes, sending her into high alert and sending Liho sliding into a hissing, protesting heap as she's shoved aside so Natasha can grab her own phone from the bedside table. For several seconds, she stares at the message, tension slowly draining from her shoulders as she starts to laugh.

It's from Steve: _Tony claims it's time to get the band back together_ followed by _He may be right for once. Ready to assemble?_

She types a quick response: _U bet. :)_ Then, as the cat meows, _Liho says hi. Want a cat? ;)_

 _She's still your cat,_ he replies. _See you in 48 hrs._

It's time for them to get back to work.


End file.
